


Taboo

by kerlin



Category: Alias
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-31
Updated: 2010-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-11 09:08:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kerlin/pseuds/kerlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nadia is the line Vaughn shouldn't cross.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taboo

**Author's Note:**

> This is a filler for "Nocturne."

Being a spy meant dismissing certain inhibitions. _Grandmère_ was probably still spinning in her grave over his stint as a priest. Watching his girlfriend as a dominatrix was right up there too. Any queasiness he may have felt about torture had vanished without a trace when confronted with Sark's superior smirk in the interrogation room.

Nadia was the line Vaughn shouldn't cross.

He told himself this even as he reflected on the fact that Nadia's perfume was a slightly heavier, smokier scent than Sydney's. It brought to mind fine cigars and leather chairs, and it suited her dark beauty. It was the kind of scent that would linger in his nostrils even after they had returned to LA.

Somehow, he got the sense that while Nadia understood perfectly well where that line was, she was taking a certain perverse pleasure in toeing it.

There was really no other explanation for the way she was pressed so close to him as she leaned across the reception desk.

Her Dutch wasn't flawless, but the lilting touch that her Spanish accent brought to it made it sound exotic and meant that no one really cared if the grammar wasn't perfect. She made that work for her, working in some suggestive mistakes, smiling coquettishly, and leaning toward the flustered receptionist as if they shared some intimate secret.

It was a more involved performance than he had ever seen from Sydney, and he told himself that any straight male in the vicinity would be paying close attention to Nadia right now. It wasn't just him.

So he thought about lines. Not just lines, but concrete walls. With barbed wire at the top.

The receptionist couldn't have been past nineteen, and his fingers tripped over themselves as he tried to call up information on Jason Cahill. The problem was that while he was typing away, he couldn't take his eyes off Nadia. They had already been here twice as long as they should have as the boy stammered his way through a series of bad jokes.

Nadia laughed, low and deep in her throat, and shifted against him, forcing him to reach his arm around her waist to recover their balance.

He knew it was a mistake even as he did it, but at the same time he realized that, he realized that she had done it on purpose. She was far too aware of her own body and balance to have moved in any other way than to force him to put his hand right where it was, resting on the curve of her hip.

It was warm enough that she was only wearing a light top, flimsy fabric that stretched on her as she moved and left a small sliver of skin under his fingers.

Bare skin against bare skin, and he breathed in deep through his nose and out through his mouth, thought about barbed wire and Sydney and Weiss and he wondered desperately why Nadia was playing this game.

Maybe the Derevko in her was showing. He remembered all too well the way Irina had toyed with him, watching him and moving with the lithe grace of a cat as she pushed every one of his buttons. Sydney had showed that coldly playful side as well, but never to him. He suddenly found himself thinking with pity of all the men who had been caught in her snares all these years.

With a final shy smile and stuttered witticism, the boy passed across the printouts of Jason Cahill's schedule for the past six months. Nadia accepted them and thanked him in her rolling accent with a smile.

She turned into his arm, faster than he had time to account for, and his fingertips dragged across her bare stomach, flat muscles and soft skin. She stood facing him, his hand still at her stomach, and curved her lips into an entirely different smile. This one was knowing, wicked, and calculating.

Before he could decide whether he was aroused or chilled to the bone, she stepped away from him, turned, and was on her way out the door of the small reception area. He almost tripped over his feet following her, and took in his first breath of the cooler outside air like a drowning man.

The line was still there, but Vaughn was pretty sure it just had been blurred.


End file.
